Hi all!

I won't finish this park before PZ2 but I did put in many years of hard work so I wanted to share it with you all.

~Rotterdam Zoo - Rotterdamse Diergaarde~

This is a historic recreation of my local zoo. The Rotterdam Zoo used to be housed in the old city center and was fashioned like other old city zoos such as Artis in Amsterdam or the Zoo Antwerp. When Rotterdam grew bigger the city wanted to use the ground the zoo was located on for other buildings. This gave the Zoo an opportunity to move and start from scratch. This also was a very special moment to design and master plan a full size zoo in one go. Sybold van Ravensteyn was the man who would design the layout, building, interiors and many more decorative elements for the zoo. This has resulted in a zoo with 1 very strong style and cohesive architecture look. The new zoo was build on a polder/piece of farm land just outside the city boundaries. This new neighborhood was names Blijdorp after the original farm lands and so the zoo also adopted the Blijdorp name.

~1940-1950~

The Zoo opened in 1940 which is a very specific year in Dutch and Rotterdam history. This is the year when the Netherlands got invaded by Germany and the WOII started for us. The city of Rotterdam was heavily bombed and the historic city center was almost fully destroyed including the old city zoo. The weird coincidence is that 1940 also was planned to be the opening year for the new Blijdorp Zoo outside the city. The new zoo was almost fully finished and opened in 1940. Because the city center was almost fully destroyed the zoo took over the roll of main event space for formal events but also for entertainment for the people of the city (and sadly also for the occupiers)

~Recreation~

For this recreation I wanted to capture the early years of the new zoo when all of the buildings and layout by Ravensteyn were still in tact. A lot of the original buildings and layout can still be found in the current zoo but some mayor elements have been lost or altered. I do know animal welfare standards have improved immensely since 1940 but for recreation sake and for historical accuracy I still wanted to follow the original plans.

To tackle this recreation I've collected many old photos and blueprints from the city archives. I've also used and edited the old map as a base for this recreation.

This is a screenshot of the park plans from the early years. I've traced and colored it in Illustrator myself.

This is the current stage and I don't really feel the need to finish it before Planet Zoo 2. I love the project but I think stuff like scaling will and my grown skills and knowledge of the zoo will be great for a second go around in PZ2.

The zoo seen from the north. The layout was designed around a central axis that stretches from the 2 points of the zoo that are farthest apart. Most of the mayor building were located on this central axis. Fanning of this main axis are all the animal habitat and fields. The center of the zoo and focal point was the observation tower and lake. Attached to the tower was the main building complex of the zoo which housed the tropical greenhouses, a stage for events & concerts, indoor exhibits for the great apes, indoor exhibits for pachyderms and a restaurant and smaller exhibit spaces.

The Zoo as seen from the north looking at the south.

The zoo seen from the south. This gives a better view of the massive central building complex of the zoo. In the left corner on the lower end of the axis you can see the old predator building with a large chimney to heat the indoor holdings. This building used to house lions and tigers on 2 separate terraces. The south was closer connected to the old city center. The large intersection and tram loop is where the main entrance is located.

This angle is also from the south but shifted a bit more to the west. On the left of the surrounding trees you can see a large playground that was added after opening.

I never got to the playground part in my recreation sadly.

A quick spin around the observation tower for an overview of the park!

Coming up!

I want to go around the zoo and take you on a tour of the stuff I've done so far and stuff that I never got around finishing, hope you all enjoy :D

~Dexter~

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by Dxtrrr
Took out 2 wrong pictures

It's amazing how accurately you've reproduced the real zoo in PZ!

11 hours ago, JB said:

It's amazing how accurately you've reproduced the real zoo in PZ!

Thanks for the comment! It was really fun but also a struggle to get everything on the right scale. I projected a 4m by 4m grid on top op the park map and went square by square to get everything in the right position. For all the buildings I've found all the original blueprints in the city archives so they were a huge help.